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White and Bretz Clinch in Halfpipe

by

USSA

2014-01-19 14:38

Defending Olympic champion Shaun White will get a chance to win three-in-a-row at the 2014 Winter Olympic Games after he and Greg Bretz clinched spots on the Olympic halfpipe snowboarding team Sunday at the Sprint U.S. Grand Prix series finale. (Getty Images/Harry How)

MAMMOTH MOUNTAIN, CA (Jan. 19) – Defending Olympic champion Shaun White (Carlsbad, CA) will get a chance to win three-in-a-row at the 2014 Winter Olympic Games after clinching a spot on the Olympic halfpipe snowboarding team Sunday with his victory at the Sprint U.S. Grand Prix series finale. Local favorite Greg Bretz (Mammoth Lakes, CA) also earned a spot on the team with his impressive performance throughout the Grand Prix tour. Style-conscious veteran Danny Davis (Truckee, CA) took second on Sunday with rookie Ben Ferguson (Bend, OR) third. Nominations for the U.S. Olympic team for halfpipe as well as the first-ever team for slopestyle snowboarding will be announced Sunday.

HIGHLIGHTS

Defending Olympic champion Shaun White (Carlsbad, CA) will get a chance to win three-in-a-row at the 2014 Winter Olympic Games after clinching a spot on the Olympic halfpipe snowboarding team Sunday with his victory at the Sprint U.S. Grand Prix series finale. White is the only U.S. athlete to have made both the Olympic halfpipe and slopestyle snowboarding teams.

Local favorite Greg Bretz (Mammoth Lakes, CA) also earned a spot on the team with his impressive performance throughout the Grand Prix tour. He finished sixth.

In addition to Olympic qualification, athletes have been competing for a total of $500,000 in cash prizes throughout the Sprint U.S. Grand Prix tour, including a $10,000 bonus for Shaun White, the overall halfpipe winner of the Sprint U.S. Grand Prix Tour.

Nominations for the U.S. Olympic team for halfpipe as well as the first-ever team for slopestyle snowboarding will be announced Sunday.

QUOTESShaun WhiteIt was a long week for me but I made the team–I'm pretty happy. My runs are definitely up to my expectations. This was nice to have the sun, some family members here and put some runs down.

When it’s on, it’s on. I don’t try to force it. It’s a strange thing, but getting down to the wire has helped me improve greatly because I’m feeling the excitement. I’m feeling the pressure and it motivates me to do better tricks and to put down the runs I want to.

This has been the craziest journey to get here, from doing slope and pipe and just the process I go through every single time. I’ve tried to compare it to the other Olympic qualifications and it just doesn’t compare at all. It is its own thing and I really love that about this time around. It’s not the same, and for me that’s fun. It stays exciting. If it was just halfpipe I would have maybe procrastinated, but since I had slope and pipe it’s really forced me to do both equally as hard and really push the limits of what I thought was possible for my riding.

Greg BretzIt was just such a confidence booster going into the rest of the season. I'm just really stoked I was able to pull it through. It's amazing. It's one thing to make the team but another to be named in your hometown.

I just have to stay away from the pressure, stay with my snowboarding and have fun doing it.